Trina Machacek: Crystal clear and clean disposable cups

When you hear crystal clear do you think of a brook, stream, river or maybe an inlet of a mountain lake. Ahhh. Such calm crystal clear water. Well that is not where we will travel to today. Think this way. Crystal clear — glassware. Then think of the last time you got a glass out of the cupboard or were handed a glass at a restaurant and you looked at it and you saw a film. A swirl of something, something you know should not be on a crystal clear glass that diminishes that crystal clear sparkle.

Going into a store that sells glasses and dishes it is very easy to get pulled into a world of twinkle and shine of clear glasses. You imagine filling that 16-ounce glass with ice and then iced tea and as the sun shines through the light brown liquid you see the ice bouncing around flickering through the clear glass. So pretty. Like on those commercials for a sideway poured frothy drink with tiny bubbles racing each other up toward the “head” of a tall clear cool glass. Well get over that! I recently pulled a glass out of my cupboard to get a refreshment for a friend and as I was walking to the refrigerator I put the glass up to the light, you know how you do, just checking. Oh my stars! There it was. That cloudy muck. Yuck.

Then what? You keep talking as you grab a towel to give it a once over, hold it back up and it is still all smeary. I just keep talking and wash the glass and go on. It happens to us all at one time or another. I knew a guy once who was going to pour coffee for a friend when the friend looked in the cup before the coffee went it he spotted a dead bug in the bottom of the cup. So a little left over soapy scum doesn’t seem so bad now does it? HAHA

Now if your glasses are decorated with say vines and strawberries or big swirls of odd patterns? The chances of your eyeballs getting past seeing those lovely designs and zeroing in on the hidden treasures swirling around on the rest of the glass is cut way, way down. I am not saying that the un-sparkly stuff hanging on the sides of my glasses, or yours, is my or your fault. I mean we wash dishes every stinkin’ day don’t we? Even with a dishwasher we wash something all the time. I even add the magic stuff that pours into the little hidden compartment that promises to sparkle my dishes. Well apparently that company has never had to deal with the wonderful hard water that splashes through my water lines. So I usually end up hand washing the clear drinking glasses I have and drying them. Heaven forbid I let them air dry. Then I’m faced with not only the smeary film but water spots too.

But. Yes a sparkling “but.” But there is such an easy fix here. Well two really. OK more than two I am sure, but here are two. First I am getting rid of all the clear glasses that have found their way into my home and replacing them with some cute vine and strawberry covered glasses. Putting them in the cupboard right next to all the coffee cups that I will from now on store upside down. Bugs are going to have to grow enough muscles to topple those cups over and climb to the bottom to be surprise visitors to anyone I might have over for coffee.

Second well this is such an easy fix. Can you say Red Solo Cup? So easy, so clean, so pretty in two lofty stacks standing next to the fridge. Waiting for someone thirsty to come in, grab one, fill and go. Never having to hold them up to the light. Never having to wash — Well wait here just a second.

OK, raise your hand if you, like me, wash a supposedly disposable cup? HAHA Yes I do it. What is with that? I have just spent like 700 words going on and on about how unfair it is to have to rewash glasses in my cupboard because of some smudgy gunk that lives on the glass and then commit to getting rid of those hard to keep clean glasses and put in designed covered glasses that won’t show the smeary slime and go so far as to even put in a supply of disposable drinking vessels and then top it all off with the realization that I will now spend time washing those disposable cups! Well that’s clear as a smear.

Trina lives in Eureka, Nevada. Share with her on Facebook, Instagram or itybytrina@yahoo.com. Really!